No Lego holes in Pibow cases anymore

Much was made of the Pibow’s “ventilation” holes on the base layer which happen to be compatible with Lego:

http://shop.pimoroni.com/blogs/news/7511856-pi-and-prejudice

In March 2013 I bought a Pibow Modela for use with Lego projects, excellent. I enthused about the Pibow’s suitability for Lego projects at PyCon Raspberry Jam 2013, and in my blog post which continues to get several hundred hits a week:

http://www.aoakley.com/articles/2013-09-19-raspberry-pi-lego-robot-part1.php

In the last month I’ve ordered the Model B Coupé, the Model B+ Coupé and the Pibow Rainbow, but none of these have Lego holes . I emailed support and was told “We’re looking at designing a lego compatible base at the moment but I’m afraid its not ready yet. Keep an eye on the store though and it should hopefully be available soon.”

Please can we have a date for the return of Lego base holes, and please can we be told how people who’ve bought Pibow cases without holes can obtain a replacement base layer once available?

I do love Pimoroni but I can’t help but feel I’ve been sold something that doesn’t match the advertising. The base holes make all kinds of mounting much, much easier - especially with Lego but also with basic cable ties.

Hi! We stopped the Lego-compatible holes for the V2/B+ Pibow because we wanted to add a height extension layer and the only way to offset the cost of the extra layer (in cutting time) was to remove those holes. The alternative was a price hike for Pibow which we really didn’t want!

We very rarely heard of people using them for Lego anyway!

We will make a replacement base layer available soon. :-)

That’s a fair reason, but it really should have been made clear beforehand, and I think you should either take down the Pi and Prejudice blog post, or at least amend it to make it very clear Lego isn’t currently supported, until this issue is resolved.

I have a somewhat disappointed 8-year-old here, and we’re both keen to get replacement base layers as soon as they become available. The PiBows are the best range of Pi cases around, so it’ll be great to have them back to fulfilling the advertised promises.

We shall expedite their availability!

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Cheers. For what it’s worth, I reckon only the central 4x2 lug holes are what’s needed.

The 2x2 ones in the corners have never seen any significant use in my projects - and given they clash with the mounting screw holes, I think they’re not worth the hassle.

Example: Lego as a quick way to attach and detach from a mini tripod webcam setup:

That’s cute! We’ll have a chat about it here and see what seems possible. :-)

awesome use of lego… never considered that!

My plan was to affix a Lego baseplate to the wall behind my daughter’s desk, and then mount her new B+ Pi to that. Then she could easily attach/detach it when she wanted to take it “on tour” for show & tell at Brownies, school etc., whilst remaining out of the way when on the wall, to free up desk space.

I, too, was disappointed to receive a Pimoroni case for a Model B+ recently with no Lego holes on the baseplate.

I needed to mount a Pi near some incoming cables from the garden. I glued a 2x4 Lego plate to the front of the blanking plate for a standard electrical wall-box and that provides a secure and neat mount for my old Pimoroni case.

Please bring back the 2x4 Lego holes on the base plates as standard. Or if that’s not possible, provide a specific Lego base plate as a new product.

Thank you,
Simon.

Hi Simon,

It’s coming! :-)

Might I suggest some Sugru to mount a Lego base to the PiBow?

http://sugru.com

Sugru is a great potential solution too! We also stock that :-) http://shop.pimoroni.com/products/sugru

Thanks for the suggestions, but my preferred option is for Pimoroni to ship the product as advertised, with Lego-compatible holes. (I could just glue some smooth Lego tiles onto the base if I wanted a bodge fix. My preference, though, is to receive the product as advertised.)

Sorry to sound a bit Trading Standards / ASA. I’m happy to wait a few more weeks whilst Pimoroni sort out a new base layer that conforms to their advertised claim “Every Pibow ever made works with Lego. Every. Single. One.” ( http://web.archive.org/web/20140704071858/http://shop.pimoroni.com/blogs/news/7511856-pi-and-prejudice ).

It’s great that Pimoroni have a forum where we can discuss these issues in the open, and I look forward to Jon’s update on when exactly we will see the revised base layer, and how they will arrange shipment to those customers who bought their Pibows on the basis of Lego compatibility. I’m due three - a Coupé B, a Coupé B+ and a PIbow Rainbow B+ .

(I note the Pi and Prejudice blog post has now gone 404, along with other blog posts. That take-down happened after my order, unfortunately. It’s still archived on Wayback though.)

Thanks all!

Hey again!

The blog post was written a long time ago, at which point the statement was true!

Of course products are revised and change over time - that’s always going to be the case and it’s not possible for us to pre-empty everything (or to avoid writing anything about our products in case at some point in the future it might not be true).

Just like a phone manufacturer may advertise that they have the “thinnest phone in the world” - it’s true when they said it… This has nothing Trading Standards about it at all…

I’m sorry that Pibow doesn’t have the LEGO holes any more, we had to make a decision on that - and to be honest very few people use the holes at all. It took 6 months before anyone even noticed they were LEGO compatible as far as we could tell!

Hi Jon - can you confirm that, as per your posts on 25 September, Pimoroni are going to make a replacement Lego-compatible base layer available “soon” ?

Given that it’s now about six weeks later, can we get a little more definition around “soon” please? Do we mean before Christmas? Before next Easter?

Thanks,

Heya!

Feel free to replace “soon” with “when we’re ready”. Apologies, I may have set unrealistic expectations there!

Hmm. If it were any other company I might be tempted to get a bit grumpy about that. I still feel I’ve bought a product based on advertising, that doesn’t conform to the advertising.

But today I created a lovely Lego joystick case mod for the Pibow and Display-o-Tron 3000 so it’s pretty difficult for me to be grumpy, especially as my five-year-old son built the most amazing joystick handle, complete with a ladder and dustbin (because doesn’t every joystick need a ladder and a dustbin?).

http://aoakley.com/articles/2014-11-02-pibow-dot3k-lego.php

However if you happen to have any of the original Pibow base layers with the Lego holes, I would be extremely grateful, and my children very happy, if you could pop one, two or three in the post. I’m also easily appeased by discount vouchers ;-)

:-)

Sadly I think the screw holes don’t quite match in the new cases… It will come, at some point - we’re just really busy right now!

Lego compatible base layers are now available for the B+ models, and only 2 quid a pop - THANK YOU!

[SOLVED]

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:-) Sorry for the wait!